Opposable Thumbs —

E3 survey hints at a show that’s still evolving

The ESA is pumping E3 attendees for our thoughts about the show's format and …

We didn't know what we were getting into when we traveled to E3 this year. The smaller show, combined with the spread out nature of the events led to some confusion and angst on the part of the press. However, the amount of games available to play and the access to developers and publishers ended up being worth the headache. On that topic, though, the ESA has now sent us a questionnaire to see how we liked the show, and to gather information about next year.

The questions concerned whether or not we thought everyone we needed to talk to was at the show, how efficiently we were able to conduct our business, and choices of location cities for next year. No Vegas? C'mon guys! They also ask us if we thought this format worked, or if we would have preferred the Summit to have been in a single location. No surprises on what the answer to that one will be.

The new format is great, but they need to buckle down and find one location that's big enough for all the meeting suites and a large play area for the software, and they need to get rid of the press conferences. I don't mind being briefed on new products, but the press releases and videos sent directly to us throughout the show did a better job than most of the press conferences, and didn't take an hour to sit through.

Clearly, the ESA is still evolving and tweaking what they'd like E3 to be. We'll keep you up to date if we hear anything about next year's show.